TCGA BRCA Solid Tissue Normal Filter

Question

[tweiskittel94]

I am a new TCGA user and need to download all the solid tissue normal transcriptome files from the TCGA BRCA project. I have been able to find all the solid tissue normal samples (there seems to be about 70) through a really round about way. What is the easiest way to find all the TCGA BRCA Solid Tissue normal files and download them? I have tried a case filter, but it does not recognize solid tissue normal as a valid filter. Thanks!

Answer 1

[Kevin Blighe]

Easiest way to find out which files are the normal tissues is:

1. go to the GDC Legacy and pick the samples that you want from the checkboxes (at left). Here is a selection for BRCA RNA-seq gene-level counts: https://portal.gdc.cancer.gov/legacy-archive/search/f?filters=%7B%2...
2. Download the manifest via the Download Manifest button
3. In R, look up the TCGA barcode for each file ID (UUIDs) in the manifest (first column) using this function posted by a colleague: C: Sample names for TCGA data from GDC-legacy archive
4. Distinguish tumour from normal based on the barcode - see A: Meaning letters in TCGA sample barcode field

There may be many other ways to do this, but this one is relatively quick (relative to other roundabout was of doing it).

Kevin

Answer 2

[shoujun.gu]

GDC provides the sample sheet file, in which there is the information about whether an sample is normal or tumor. You could filter the samples by writing a python or R script.

[Kevin Blighe]

Please be more specific. Where can one obtain the sample sheet? Does it show, for each file, whether it relates to a tumour or normal?

[shoujun.gu]

1. add your files to your cart
2. go to your cart page, there is a 'sample sheet' download button. download that tsv file
3. the sample sheet tsv file contains columns: File ID File Name Data Category Data Type Project ID Case ID Sample ID Sample Type
4. match your sample file name with the 'Sample Type'